


Transcript from Talk Given at Food Service Frontiers 2020: "How do you deliver a Burrito to the Underworld?"

by emceeaich



Category: Annabel Scheme and the Adventure of the New Golden Gate - Robin Sloan, Blaseball (Video Game), Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26574928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emceeaich/pseuds/emceeaich
Summary: There many steps and several technologies in play when a fan at Tartarus' Sixth Circle Stadium orders a fresh, hot burrito. In this talk, a member of the Hades Tigers fan services team walks us through an order from the fan to the delivery.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Transcript from Talk Given at Food Service Frontiers 2020: "How do you deliver a Burrito to the Underworld?"

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Press Release from Sixth Circle Stadium, Tartarus, Hades](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572960) by [cynthia1960](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynthia1960/pseuds/cynthia1960). 



**Tigers' staff member walks on stage to applause, a slide behind them reads: "Tigers Fan Services: A Great Job, Well Done," transitioning to "Never Look Back on a Great Fan Experience"**

Thank you, good afternoon. I hope you enjoyed the lunch we sponsored today. All the courses were from our food court vendors at Sixth Circle Stadium.

**Slide: Logos of Hades Tigers, and food court vendor restaurants**

No matter how filling that La Taqueria burrito has been, don't fall asleep! You got some Tim Horton's coffee, I hope. (mixed laughter)

**Slide: Sixth Circle Stadium from the air, Tigers and ILB superimposed**

Internet Blaseball welcomes fans from the mortal and infernal realms and we can't expect all visiting fans to enjoy grilled pomegranate. (mixed laughter) Though our Airbnb hosts would probably be elated. (more laughter)

**Slide: Shade of the dead in a chef's hat, holding whisk, shrugging**

And since those who dwell in Hades have drank of the River Lethe, we're missing out on centuries of culinary skill and knowledge.

**Slide: A Shade of the dead, in their seat at Sixth Circle Stadium, wearing Hades Tigers fan kit, holding a hot dog, smiling, and giving a thumbs up**

Don't worry, we can still do a great ball park dog. Nobody's forgotten how to boil water! (laughter and mixed applause)

**Slide: Group of Blaseball fans, some human, some not, some corporeal, some not, all wearing the fan kit of teams across the league**

But modern fans want more!

**Slide: Collage of photos of ballpark food: garlic fries, pretzels, poutine, an infinite number of street tacos, beer, bheer, blood wine, peanuts (oh so many), orbs on a stick, donair kebab, and Timbits™**

Blaseball is as much about great food at the ballpark as it is praying that an umpire doesn't incinerate your favorite player. (confused noises from audience)

**Slide: A burrito, wrapped in foil, split in half and arranged in a 'V' so we can see a cross section of the deliciousness**

We decided that in Season Eight of Internet League Blaseball, the Fan Services team would build on our fan-first focus by delivering burritos to fans.

**Slide: Shade of the dead in a chef's hat, holding burrito, shrugging**

We don't know how to make a burrito. But we know how to make partnerships!

**Slides: In memoriam montage of[incinerated Moist Talkers and Tigers players from the "Ruby Tuesday" incident](https://blaseball.fandom.com/wiki/Ruby_Tuesday) **

After Ruby Tuesday, we worked with our friends at the Canada Moist Talkers to open a Tim Horton's at Sixth Circle Stadium as a tribute and bond.

**Video clip: Tim Horton's at food court. Lines of fans-human, inhuman, material, immaterial-waiting to order. A glowing portal opens behind the counter and a teenager in Tim Horton's regalia pushes in a cart full of trays with fresh donuts, Timbits™, and coffee. The teen gazes in horror at the staff and customers and dashes back through the portal, screaming in terror.**

With Tim Horton's we can work with a single site in Mississauga, Ontario to make and deliver to our food court. But burritos are different. Ask two San Francisco Lovers fans what the best burrito is and you'll have a fight.

**Slide: Cartoon of two SF Lovers fans fighting as the anthropomorphic versions of their favored burritos look on from the side**

But what if you didn't offer a fight, but a choice?

**Slide: A Tigers usher has parted the fighting Lovers fans as the burrito mascots smile and cheer from the sides**

Your favorite burrito, delivered to your seat?

**Slide: A group of Blaseball fans in the regalia of many teams, holding burritos, smiling, looking up at the camera, and giving a thumbs up**

Let's hear from one of our delivery partners.

**Video: A scientist in a lab coat, hair and glasses disheveled, pleads for help into the camera; in the background, more lab coated-sciences fight a last stand against a swarm of tentacles swarming through what appears to be a portal in space-time**

(Grimly) Wrong clip. (types on laptop)

**Video: A scientist in a lab coat, hair and glasses in place, says to camera: "Even with many taquerias to work with, we could use a single portal, if we opened it above the bay!"**

So, let's follow the hungry fan's journey!

**Slide: Diagram with stylized fan at counter of Los Sueños del Burrito (Burrito Dreams) in Hades placing order for burrito, a pair of hydrogen atoms joined together by arrows, and the fan's favorite taqueria in San Francisco**

Our fan arrives early, hungry, and places their order. We use quantum entangled point of sale systems to send the order to a partner taqueria. Einstein might have called it "spooky action at distance."

**Slide: Cartoon of a grumpy Albert Einstein**

I call it "yummy action at a distance!"

**Slide: Cartoon of a smiling Albert Einstein holding a burrito**

The taqueria prepares the order, and attaches one of our partner's guidance and delivery packages.

**Slide: Photo of smiling taqueria manager holding a foil-wrapped burrito conjoined with a three inch tube festooned with sensors, LEDs, and an antenna coming off the back**

Here's where the fun starts.

**Video: Employee wheels out a cart of burritos with the guidance package attached into the taqueria's parking lot where a large, pneumatic cannon is attended by another employee wearing a set of heavy soundproofing headphones**

These cannons are in use throughout the Bay Area, and the "thoop" has replaced the traditional Tuesday noon siren test.

**Video: (continued) The employee with the ear protection loads burritos into the cannon, steps back to a control panel and presses a button. The cannon raises, aims and fires a flight of a dozen burritos, each one sent off with a loud "thoop"**

The burritos are on their way, but how do they know where to land?

**Video: We follow a computer generated burrito with guidance package, spinning rapidly along its long axis, rising out of San Francisco and over the Bay**

Every taqueria is aiming at the same target, high over the Dumbarton Bridge.

**Video: (continued) the view widens and we watch the burrito approach (its speed and position annotated in the animation) a point three kilometers over the bridge, the animation zooms in on the target, a ring of exotic matter wobbling rapidly on all three degrees of freedom**

At 500 meters from the portal to Hades, our burrito passes through a mesh of radio frequency id readers linked to our portal. The portal adjusts.

**Video: (continued) The burrito passes the RFID reader picket, animated radio signals propagate to the ring, which flips to await the inbound burrito, a clock in the bottom left of the animation implies this is orchestrated in fractional seconds**

Here's the trick. Our fan doesn't have to wait for that burrito at the counter. They go to their seat, the location of which they told the counter entity when they placed the order.

**Video: (continued) The burrito enters the ring, which is a portal to Hades, at a slight angle to perpendicular, the image freezes to annotate the fractional change to perpendicular alignment.**

The RFID reader got the order information with the section, row, and seat off that burrito's guidance package, sent it to the portal which adjusted itself so that the burrito passed through perfectly aimed at the customer. 

**Video: (continued) The burrito passes through the portal into the gloom of Hades above Sixth Circle Stadium. Cold gas thrusters despin the burrito. A streamer deploys to stabilize it and slow it down. With mere moments before slamming into the stands, the guidance and recovery package falls away and is snagged by a harpy wearing Tigers livery, the burrito deploys an airbag around itself, the fan's phone buzzes a notification "Heads Up!" and the fan stands up from their seat to catch their burrito. We hear the crack of the bat and a cheer from the crowd.**

That burrito's safe at home! (groaning)

**Slide: Logos of multiple technology partners including Arq-Tech, Draper Labs, Alphabet, NASA Ames Research Center, Clover, and IBM Almaden Lab**

We want you to be our next partner. Our customers are craving your product to make their ballpark experience complete.

**Slide: Previous slide with "And you!" superimposed.**

Thank you. (wild, thunderous applause)

**Author's Note:**

> The burrito delivery cannon is borrowed shamelessly from Robin Sloan's novella, Annabel Scheme and the Adventure of the New Golden Gate, https://www.robinsloan.com/books/annabel-scheme-serial/.


End file.
